The Dakota Access Pipeline or Bakken pipeline is a 1,172-mile-long (1,886 km) underground oil pipeline project in the United States. The pipeline is being planned by Dakota Access, LLC, a subsidiary of the Dallas, Texas corporation Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. It would begin in the Bakken oil fields in Northwest North Dakota and would travel in a more or less straight line south-east, through South Dakota and Iowa, and end at the oil tank farm near Patoka, Illinois. The pipeline is due for delivery on January 1, 2017.[3]

The $3.7 billion project became public in July 2014, and informational hearings for landowners took place between August 2014 and January 2015.